


We Make Love (And Love Falls Apart)

by alexfayerose



Series: Rude and Reno: A Collection [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Insecurity, M/M, Mild Smut, Partnership, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexfayerose/pseuds/alexfayerose
Summary: Snapshots of how Reno and Rude's relationship develops over the years.
Relationships: Reno/Rude (Compilation of FFVII)
Series: Rude and Reno: A Collection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025479
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	We Make Love (And Love Falls Apart)

They start working together when Reno’s still a kid. He’s twenty and has everything to prove, and Rude is twenty-two, but has already proved himself to be a force to be reckoned with. Reno, he discovers less than two weeks into the partnership President Shinra had forced them into, came from nothing. A loud, mouthy, poor kid from the Slums, he’d been adopted into Shinra as a child. It’s why, Elena explains to him, Reno fights like he has nothing to live for. It’s why he holds on tight like he’s going to lose everything. He’s used to losing things, to having them wrenched away from him. He came from nothing, and he’s used to being nothing.

They’re very different, Reno and Rude. Reno’s loud, talks like he’s afraid he’s never going to be heard. Rude listens, and he hears, and he learns. And for that, their partnership works. Reno may be reckless and volatile, like he’s made of mako, always about to explode, but he’s smart, and, for his faults, he’s a good leader. There’s a reason he’s risen the ranks of the Turks as young as he is, whether or not people respect the person that he is. 

Reno struggles, though. It doesn’t take Rude long to realize that. He struggles with self-worth and self-doubt, with technically being a boss but not having any of the respect that came with the title. He second guesses himself, and when he starts to second guess himself, he gets louder and more reckless. He puts himself right in the line of fire, and before they’ve even finished out their first year as partners, Rude’s caught himself wondering a multitude of times how Reno isn’t dead.

When the first year of their partnership is over, they have to go to Tseng to reflect on whether or not the partnership is working. Either of them could technically request a transfer or a new partner, though Tseng would not be obligated to listen to what either of them had to say. That time has arrived quickly, with only mild near-death experiences. For all that’s happened, Rude has no issues with Reno as a partner. 

“Elena needs a new partner,” Reno begins conversationally, wrapping bandages around his bruised, split-open knuckles. He’d punched a wall out of frustration earlier in the day. The way he winces reminds Rude that he’s still just a kid. Only two years younger than Rude, but his appearance gives the illusion that he’s somehow younger. Rude grunts noncommittally in response. “If someone was interested.”

It’s a question without being a question. Rude takes his sunglasses off, cleans them off on the fabric of his suit jacket. Reno isn’t good at being straight forward when he’s thinking about things, but Rude is pretty good at figuring it out. “You looking for a new partner, Reno?” Rude asked, placing his glasses back on his face and pushing them up the bridge of his nose.

“Should I be?”

The tone is coy. Unbothered. Unphased. Reno is like that. So little phases him until it does, until everything boils down and he can’t hold it back, and it explodes from him. He doesn’t want Rude to see his insecurity — that he might be concerned Rude is going to drop him and choose someone else. Reno’s worked for Shinra since he was still a teenager; Rude wonders how many times he’s started to trust someone only to have that person drop him and move on, citing Reno as too reckless, too loud, too hard to handle. 

“I’m not dead yet, partner. Afraid you’re going to have to stick with me.”

He says nothing more, and Reno remains silent, an absolute rarity. But there’s a stunned undercurrent to the silence, a confusion, a tension, like the younger Turk is holding his breath, waiting for Rude to pull the rug out from under him. When Rude says nothing, lets that silence linger, Reno exhales, and then smiles. It’s wide, still a little sharp at the edges, like he’s still waiting for the punchline to the joke. “Alight, then, partner,” he replies casually, and Rude would love to pretend Reno doesn’t sound as relieved as he does, “let’s go reflect.”

\+ + +

It’s less than two years into their partnership when Rude realizes he can read Reno like a book. Reno has simple mannerisms to figure out, and so, Rude can typically tell when Reno has had a bad day. If it’s a certain kind of bad day, Reno doesn’t snap or get violent or volatile; he gets silent. His anger is like that of a steely blade, sharp-edged and capable of cutting anyone getting too close. That’s Reno at his most dangerous, when his silent, single-minded anger gets deafening and washes over everyone in the vicinity.

The best bet is to step away and let Reno calm. His anger steeples and then fades, eases away, and it doesn’t tend to take longer than a few hours. But sometimes, Rude realizes, it settles deeper, right in Reno’s bones, and then it doesn’t ease so quickly, and nobody seems to know the best ways to handle it. They often clear the room and keep a wide radius, lest they end up on the wrong end of Reno’s baton. 

Rude never clears the room. He never walks away and leaves Reno to settle. He stays, quiet and stoic as ever, and lets Reno’s rage shift and swirl and grow, until it finally wanes. Sometimes, he helps, other times, he doesn’t. It really depends on how sharp that blade-edge anger really is. 

It feels like a tornado. It brings tension to the air, practically tangible around Reno as he walks into the ‘staff room’ for the Turks. It’s supposed to be a break room of sorts, with vending machines and long tables with uncomfortable chairs. They don’t spend a lot of time in it if they don’t have to, but Rude and Reno have both been on call for seventy-two hours, so they’re living on vending machine food and shitty coffee and the cheap beds two floors down. This is one of the reasons for Reno’s swirling, albeit silent, rage. 

“If I don’t get some good fucking food, I’m going to snap,” Reno threatens, and Rude glances at him from the corner of his eye. His partner is drawn up, shoulders and spine taut. He looks longer, lankier somehow, like a feral cat poised to pounce on his prey. Rude is out of the strike zone, he thinks. If anyone else enters the room, they probably won’t be so lucky to avoid Reno’s anger.

Wordlessly, Rude pushes a bag towards him. Brows furrowed, the redhead pulls the bag open and pulls from it a bag of candy and a container of pasta that Rude had cooked at home when he’d had a chance to step out the night before. He lives close enough to the headquarters that he sometimes goes unnoticed when he slips off. “Eat,” he tells Reno shortly, simply.

Reno opens the container and drops into a seat, shoveling pasta into his mouth like he’s afraid Rude is going to rescind the offer and pull it away suddenly. When Rude makes no move to do so, Reno relaxes visibly and exhales a sigh. It’s not much, as far as food goes, but it’s better than the cheap shit from the vending machines. And the candy… well, Reno’s always happier if he has candy during the day. “You’re a damned blessing,” Reno says after a moment, and Rude shrugs nonchalantly, unphased.

The next day, he brings Reno coffee — real and decent coffee from an actual coffee shop that isn’t their shitty office coffee. Reno smiles, and it’s barely sarcastic, the way it typically is. His anger is still heated and volatile and swirling like a tornado, but Rude feels like he’s standing in the eye of it right alongside Reno, where things are quiet. And he decides that that’s where he likes to be. 

\+ + +

Reno falls asleep in Rude’s house for the first time when he’s twenty-four and Rude is twenty six. Four years into their partnership and it’s the first time Reno’s ever been in Rude’s home. He’s particular about where he goes and why he’s there; he’s never let Rude into his own home, and Rude gathers that it’s because he still doesn’t have much. There’s not a point in creating a home when you’re never in it, and the young third in command of the Turks very rarely leaves Shinra Headquarters unless he’s on assignment. 

He’s only there because he’s injured on assignment, and the closest place to bring him was, in fact, Rude’s house. Despite Reno’s protests, Rude practically carries him inside and drops him onto the couch to open his shirt and assess the damage. Despite the way the front of Reno’s dress shirt had been stained with overwhelming amounts of red, Rude finds that the cut on his chest isn’t too bad. It’s bleeding a lot, but it’s not deep enough to have cut anything serious, and while it’s likely to give him a scar, it’s not fatal.

“If you wanted to undress me, all you had to do was ask,” Reno mutters, long limbs splayed across the couch lazily, and if he didn’t sound so feeble, voice quieter than Rude’s ever heard, Rude would be more prone to smiling. As it is, the words are barely above a weak whisper, so Rude ignores them. 

He finds a healing materia in the drawer in his bedroom and returns to where Reno is in the living room on the couch, only to find that the redhead is fast asleep. The bleeding has mostly stopped, though the fact that Reno has fallen asleep despite the pain he’s clearly in is enough to concern Rude. He uses the materia to heal the wound to the best of his ability, watching the way Reno’s brows knit together before settling again, never once stirring from his sleep.

Rude sits back, watches Reno sleep for a few minutes, and wonders when the last time he actually slept was. He knows that Reno doesn’t sleep, because he often can’t. He’s always prepared to be sent wherever Shinra needs him at a moment’s notice, even if he hasn’t slept in seventy two hours. He’s the President’s body guard, the dispatched assassin, taking care of all threats and loose ends. He’s the scapegoat when things go wrong, even if it’s not his fault that they did. Reno’s made a name for himself, has a found notoriety when it comes to causing problems; he takes the blame even when it isn’t earned.

Rude scoops Reno up into his arms. The weight of the younger in his arms, still so light in spite of his muscle, reminds him just how young Reno actually is. He feels a surge of protectiveness, and it’s probably irrational. Reno is his boss, for all intents and purposes. Partners, sure, but Reno ranks above him. And it’s not like Reno is incapable of taking care of himself. Even at his most reckless, even at his lowest, Reno ranks as high as he does because he’s  _ earned _ that. Still… 

Rude can’t help it. He tucks Reno under the blankets of his own bed and exits the bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind himself and leaving Reno there to sleep. He’s fallen asleep on the couch before, and it’s not so bad once he cleans up the blood and sets Reno’s phone on the table so he’s not laying on it. It’s that phone that wakes him from a dead sleep in the early hours of the morning, the ringing loud and brash. Rude’s own phone never leaves vibrate, so he knows it’s not his, but he reaches for it anyway.

For a moment, he wonders about the implications of his answering Reno’s phone while the sun is still rising on the horizon. He presses the accept call button and brings the phone to his ear. “What?”

“Where is Reno?” The question from Tseng comes after a few seconds of silence. There’s a tension to the question; he had called expecting Reno, who never doesn’t answer his phone when their boss calls. There are implications to the fact that it’s Rude answering the phone, and he knows Tseng is processing that, deciding whether or not it’s worth asking questions about. It seems that he decides he’d rather press the subject later on, because he remains silent after his first question.

“Asleep. What do you need?” Gruff and simple and to the point. He has no intention of letting Tseng wake his partner for what’s probably nothing important. 

“He’s needed to escort Vice President Shinra to a business meeting,” Tseng responds curtly, and Rude snorts. Sure, wake Reno up to fly a helicopter and stand off to the side during a business meeting, doing absolutely nothing. Reno wasn’t the only person who could do those things, but for some reason, he was always the first and last call made. 

“I’ll handle it.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” 

Rude is already getting to his feet, rubbing the remnants of sleep out of his eyes. “Reno isn’t a machine. He needs to get some kind of sleep, and when you’re calling him at every hour of the night to pull him into bullshit missions that anyone could handle, he doesn’t get that, and he gets himself hurt. He’s injured, and he’s asleep, and I’m not waking him up for this when I can handle it myself.” He’s aware that his voice is loud and curt, and that this is his boss. He’s toeing the line of getting himself fired, or even killed, but his frustration is overwhelming, finally pushing through like water breaking through a damn. 

Tseng’s silence is terse, thick with tension. Sans probably Reno himself, very few talk back to Tseng. They accept their orders and do as they’re told, whether they agree with it or not. Reno does, but only because he’s too valuable for Shinra to lose, and even he gets worked over for it. Rude isn’t looking forward to what his punishment is going to be when it comes down to it. 

“You’re due in half an hour. Don’t be late,” is all Tseng says, tight and curt, and Rude exhales. He ends the call, sets Reno’s phone back on the living room table, and then ducks into the bedroom to get dressed. For half a second, he pauses, watches Reno sleep. He’s curled up in a ball in the center of the bed, loose strands of red hair brushing over the tattoos on his cheeks. He looks relaxed; it’s a way Rude is not used to seeing him. He holds far too much tension for such a young kid. 

Rude dresses quickly and ducks back out of his own room before he loses his will and stays there, sending Shinra a firm ‘fuck off’. It would be Reno taking the brunt of the punishment for Rude’s insubordinate behavior. 

It’s a boring day, all in all. He’s in the pilot seat of the helicopter to take Rufus to the meeting, he stands on the sidelines, all bulk and intimidation with a gun tucked into his jacket. He doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need to be there. Nothing happens. He returns home after an uneventful op that he probably hadn’t been needed on, and Reno’s still there. 

“Got called out,” he says to Reno’s hard stare as he shuts the door behind himself.

“ _I_ got called out,” Reno corrects bluntly. He taps his phone absently against his knee. “And you, partner, are going to get a shit ton of hell for back talking Tseng.” He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t even ask what the op was. He just watches Rude with deep blue eyes, emotion shifting in them like an ocean shifts with the tides. It’s practically unreadable, and Rude’s gotten good at reading Reno.

“I’d do it again. Fuck Tseng.”

Reno’s eyes flash, and for a second, Rude feels the manic energy, like the tidal wave that is Reno’s nearly uncontrollable anger is going to wash over him. But then the cool blue settles, and Reno smiles, sharp and smug. “How about a beer, partner?”

\+ + +

Reno turns twenty-five, and they’ve been partners for five years, and everything changes so abruptly that Rude can’t track it. Rude is a calm and collected man at the worst of times, and Reno, decidedly, is not. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. An assignment goes bad, and there’s blood, but no one dies and they hit their mark, so Rude considers that a success, all things considered. Reno, clearly, does not.

He shows up at Rude’s home, and he doesn’t knock. He throws the door open and marches inside as Rude is cleaning blood off of his chest, and Rude pauses, rag in hand and shirt opened over his chest, exposing the wound that’s still bleeding.

“You got shot,” Reno accuses sharply. Rude wouldn’t argue if he could, and he can’t. The bullet wound is there on his abdomen, where Reno can see it, just below the line of his ribcage. Maybe it would have been fatal, had he not had healing almost immediately after. Now it’s just mildly annoying and still bloody, ruining his shirt. 

“Not for the first time,” Rude points out, unsure why Reno’s eyes are flashing like the electricity that pulses through his electro-mag rod. They’ve both been shot during missions. They’ve saved each other more times than Rude cares to count during their five year partnership. This fiery, electrified anger doesn’t make sense. They shake it off, heal up, and get back to work, they certainly don’t get pissed at each other. 

“You took a bullet meant for me,” Reno cites coldly, and Rude’s spine goes tense. He hadn’t even thought about it. Reno’s back had been turned, dealing with two people at one time, and a third had aimed a gun at his back. Even as fast as Reno was, as good as he was at avoiding certain death all the time, he wouldn’t have gotten out of the way. Rude would love to believe he’d known in that moment that he would survive, when he put himself between Reno and that gun, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t even thought about it. He had reacted, kept his partner alive, and even as the wound drips blood down his stomach, he knows that he doesn’t regret that decision. He would do it again.

“Yes, I did.”

Reno jerks forward, hands clenching in the fabric of Rude’s shirt. He moves so fast that electricity crackles in the air around him, and he looks absolutely  _ livid _ . Rude has seen Reno mad, has seen him seething with rage and cursing the world, and he’s even seen Reno angry at him. But he’s never seen Reno like this, wild and uncontrolled even beyond his normal. Rude isn’t scared of Reno, he’s never had a reason to be, but Reno like this, like a predatory animal corning his prey, sends a tremor of fear down Rude’s spine.

And then Reno is kissing him. It’s not what a kiss is supposed to be, not some picture perfect love story cliche. It’s all teeth and heat and anger, but that’s what makes it perfect. It’s as volatile as Reno himself is, like they’re going to explode into fire and destruction and decay, and Reno is still rushing in head first. Rude drags him closer and fists a hand into the long strands of red hair, holding him far too tightly to be comfortable.

“If you die, the world is going to burn,” Reno threatens against Rude’s lips, fingers of one hand skating over Rude’s abdomen and coming away red and warm. “I’ll burn it all down myself, count on it.”

It washes over Rude like the ocean itself, lost in the cyan blue of Reno’s eyes. Reno’s angry, but not at him. He’s angry at the prospect of Rude dying, he’s angry at the havoc he would have to reckon on the world if it happens. There would be no one capable of taming that anger, Rude is positive. But, all at once, he feels the same burning rage. If Reno were to die, Rude would tear Shinra to pieces with his own hands, and the rest of the world, not long after. It’s beyond the partnership Tseng had wanted in pairing them together; Rude can’t put words to it, so he drags Reno back and kisses him again. 

They fall into Rude’s bed together, cloudy and muddled and possessive and claiming. They move together, hot and hurried. It feels like they have no time and all the time in the world, aware of what they have to lose and what they have to gain. It’s nothing romantic, but it’s everything all the same. Reno is loud, because Reno is always loud, and he arches into Rude’s nails scraping against his back and hips. When he cums, it’s with nothing more than a quiet gasp of Rude’s name. Rude finishes not long after. All he can smell or taste or feel in the air around him is Reno, and he settles into the bed with that fact pleasant in the haze of his mind.

When Reno stirs moments later to stand and gather his clothes, probably to flee the scene, Rude shifts. Neither of them is good with emotions, because emotions are tricky to have when the job puts them in danger daily. Their loyalty is supposed to be to Shinra. That’s what the Turks mission call is, to be Shinra’s attack dogs and guard dogs. Something has shifted, and their loyalty remains to Shinra… but above that, it’s to each other. It’s a lot to process and even more to talk about for two people who don’t talk about feelings.

“Reno, stay,” Rude insists, hand curling loosely around Reno’s wrist. Tan skin contrasts starkly with how pale Reno is. Reno tenses; Rude presses a kiss to the back of his shoulder, saying everything he needs to without words, and then his partner relaxes back into the bed, letting his clothes drop back to the floor.

“Have coffee ready in the morning,” Reno demands without heat, sleep inching into his tone as the tension eases from his body, leaving him boneless and relaxed.

It’s a lot to talk about for two people who don’t talk about feelings, but when Reno falls asleep with him, lanky body sprawled against his own, Rude decides that maybe they don’t need to talk about it. Maybe they’re fine, just as they are. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've liked these two since I beat the game originally but I finally finished the remake, so. Comments are my lifeblood.


End file.
